Leslie Charteris - The Saint And The Fiction Makers

“Not very gallant of you, Mr. Templar,” Warlock said, as Galaxy merely gaped like a spoiled child whose hand has just been slapped for the first time. “Galaxy will obey her orders to the letter. And so will you. Let’s go.”

Five minutes later the van rolled out of the gates of Warlock’s grounds. Behind came the counterfeit police car; Bishop drove it, Simon sat next to him, and Warlock and Frug sat watchfully in the back seat. The pace was slow, and a winding route along back roads towards the rear of the Hermetico building necessitated considerable caution and flashing of brake lights on the part of Monk, who was driving the van. But at that hour of the night there was little traffic, and within the twenty minutes specified by Warlock they had reached the pasture they would have to cross in order to reach their goal, which was still half a mile away.

Nero Jones jumped from the van, clipped the wires of the low fence, and waved his arm to signal Monk to proceed. The van bounced slowly through the opening and rumbled off across the rocky field with Nero back inside. Ahead, as the police car followed, Simon could see the patch of forest which was their goal. There was no moon, but the sky was clear, and even though both the vehicles had turned off their lights the bright masses of stars gave a silvery illumination of the whole landscape which disposed of any problem about finding the way.

Warlock was leaning forward tensely, looking at the van.

“Why is the fool tearing along like that?” he fretted. “He’ll turn over.”

“He’s only going ten miles an hour,” Bishop said.

“Mind that rock!”

“I see it,” said Bishop.

A sulky cow plodded leisurely out of the way as the procession growled through its hitherto private territory. Warlock, taken by surprise, had yanked out his automatic before he realized the bovine nature of the lumbering shape.

“Good idea,” Simon said. “Work in a little big-game hunting and we’ll have steaks for breakfast.”

The cow gave a belligerent moo as it was left behind. Warlock snorted and shoved his pistol back under his coat.

“We’re coming up to the wood now,” he said. “Everybody be set to go.”

“I still don’t get why they don’t have lights all around the place,” Frug said.

“So if anybody decided to drop a bomb on it from a plane at night he wouldn’t have an easy time spotting it,” Simon answered.

“Oh, sure,” Frug sneered disdainfully. “Drop a bomb on it!”

“It could happen,” Warlock said. “This place is built to be completely safe even in war. Tend to your own business and don’t jabber so much.”

“At least none of us is nervous,” the Saint observed amiably.

“Shut up!” Warlock croaked. “Where are they? Where’s Monk off to?”

“In the trees,” Bishop replied.

The van had disappeared into the darkness of the forest, and the police car followed slowly. The shadows shut out most of the light of the sky, making it difficult to see anything.

“Keep up, then!” Warlock commanded. “Don’t lose them entirely!”

Suddenly the van loomed directly ahead of the police car, moving in reverse. Warlock waved his arms and fired off a broadside of orders.

“Stop! Watch out! Don’t run into him! Pull alongside!”

He rolled down his window and called harshly to Monk in the driver’s seat.

“What the devil do you think you’re doing? You’re going backwards!”

He was beginning to sound like an elderly schoolmarm in charge of her first picnic outing for juvenile delinquents, and yet that incongruity only lent an additional spine-chilling quality to the reality of what was happening.

“I know,” Monk said, not bothering to hold his voice down. “We’ve got to turn around here and back up to the fence!”

“Quiet!” Warlock ordered furiously. “You think you’re at a football match? Turn around, then. How far are we from the fence?”

“Not far. Fifty yards.”

“Back up and give them room, Bishop,” Warlock said.

The van grunted laboriously to and fro among the trees, and then moved very slowly in reverse in the direction it had originally been travelling.

“We’ll stop here,” Warlock said when the police car had followed another hundred feet. “Come along, Mr. Templar, and no tricks. I don’t need to remind you...”

“No,” Simon interrupted. “You don’t.”

“Bishop, hurry on up and help them,” Warlock ordered. “We’ll follow. Do you have your dart gun, Frug?”

“Check,” said Frug, crisply, slapping a bulge in his jacket.

“It is just like a movie, isn’t it?” Simon commented.

Bishop had already disappeared ahead. Warlock and Frug got out of the car and waited for the Saint to precede them.”

“Hurry it up,” Warlock said, “and no more comments.”

Monk and Nero Jones were already at work on Hermetico’s outer fence when Simon, Warlock and Frug came around the van to join them. Bishop was inside the van adjusting the exact height of the aluminiun bridge to match that of the hole his colleagues were making in the fence. For the first time since his involuntary joining of S.W.O.R.D., Simon was impressed with the professionalism of Warlock’s group. They went about their assigned tasks as quickly, quietly and efficiently as those automatic electrical devices of which Warlock was so fond. It was as if real ability lay coiled inside their unimpressive personalities, to be released only in the rare moments when it was needed for a specific job.

“Careful,” Warlock said unnecessarily to Jones. “One slip with those jumper leads and all hell will break loose.”

Monk grunted and went on clipping through the fence as Jones bridged the gaps with wires which would prevent circuits from being broken and setting off an alarm. Simon scanned the scene around them. The big pale dome of the building itself, like the upper third of a monstrous tennis ball, rose not thirty feet away. From this rear view it was unlighted and almost completely featureless. It might have been made of solid rock, a fallen moon dimly reflecting the light of the night sky. Around the outside of the fence were signs illuminated by hooded bulbs; they warned in unspecific but emphatic terms of the dreadful fate which awaited anyone attempting to transgress on Hermetico’s premises.

The hole in the fence was complete. It was over three feet in diameter and about three feet above the ground level at its lower edge. Frug was passing around spectacles coated with the chemical that Warlock had provided. Simon put on his pair. Instantly the dark area between fence and white building was alive with bars of light, crisscrossing one another from earth to the top of the fence.

“Good work,” said Warlock.

He was looking through the hole in the fence along the tunnel which his men had found in the network of rays. It was not a very spacious tunnel, and it was not of uniform dimensions all the way through, but it was big enough for a prone man.

“The bridge,” Warlock grunted.

He motioned to Monk, who went into the cab of the van and backed it up until the open rear doors were within a foot of the fence. The engine of the van, which had been muffled by every means Warlock could contrive, still seemed as loud as the racket of a sawmill.

“What if somebody looks out here?” Frug muttered.

“We’re all dead,” Simon assured him.

“Shut up!” Warlock hissed. “Nobody’s going to look out. There aren’t any windows.”

Simon glanced hopefully at the tiny apertures around the upper part of the dome — scarcely visible except to one who was looking for them — and said nothing.

“Now,” Jones whispered, and Bishop pushed the lever which moved the bridge out from the rear of the van.